Sales Hack #30: Jill Rowley – Mindset, Skillset, Toolkit

Jill Rowley, #SocialSelling, is the leader in social selling. Jill’s background includes 10 years at Eloqua, then Oracle, and Jill is currently an Advisor to Hubspot, TrackMaven, and more. In this PODCAST, Jill Rowley candidly shares what’s changed in the world of selling – and what HASN’T! Thanks to my friends at Technology Advice for putting this podcast together!

I’ve seen marketing evolve and mature, but sales is still stuck. Sales is still selling to a more modern and mature buyer.

How do you get sales unstuck?

Mindset, skillset, toolkit. The mindset of the modern sales professional. No one wants to be sold to, they have more choice and they have more voice.

We have to understand the customer. Know they buyer. The people who sell more, serve more. They help their buyers, they don’t sell their buyers.

The theme at the CEB conference – know they buyer. And know how to make it easy for your buyer to buy, to reduce the friction. A lot of it is being prescriptive!

As a company who has 100 customers, you know the best way to do it, and the best way NOT to do it. What do the people at those successful companies have in common?

Content is the currency of the modern sales professional. Sales people need to be reading what their buyers are reading, sharing that content across their social networks and that will help that sales professional be where their buyer is in that 57% of the buyer process.

The Social Selling Index (SSI) is very LinkedIn Centric. There isn’t a perfect metric for social selling. The perfect metric is revenue, and even beyond that is customer advocacy. Your best sales people are not on your payroll!

The end game of sales is not a signed contract. It’s a successful, happy advocate.

SSI is one metric to measure the adoption of that sales professional using one network – LinkedIn. It is the most popular in B2B. I actually think twitter is a more interesting network to do research on your buyer, to be relevant to your buyer, to build a relationship with your buyer, IF your buyer is on twitter.

Who are they following?
Who is following them?
What have they favorited?

Do you think you can automate the process?

Yes, you can automate the research. Automating the sharing of the content is BAD!

Mindset – Sales is about helping your buyers. People who serve more, sell more. How can I help my buyer ultimately buy. How do I coach them toward buying.

Skillset – The digitally driven, social connected, empowered buyer. If your buyers are, your sales people need to be too. We’ve gone from the information age to the network age.

Toolkit – There are all sorts of great tools to make people more efficient, more effective, more productive. But a fool with a tool is still a fool! A fool with many tools is an even bigger fool! Don’t start with the tool, start with your buyer. Know thy buyer!

How his this sales hack allowed you to drive your business?

I was a quota carrying sales rep for 52 quarters at Eloqua, and then spent a year developing a global social selling training at Oracle, and then I launched my own company, I became a solopreneur. Literally, I have done zero outbound. My network is my net worth. What I do on a daily basis to always be connecting, to building my professional brand, to sharing content that is relevant to my customers, to listening to the social web… I was a social seller for a long time, and then I designed a training program on how to do social selling.

I’ve done zero outbound.

Anything else? One size doesn’t fit all. The phone ISN’T DEAD! Email servers haven’t been shut down, people are meeting face to face. Social is an additional channel. I don’t want to mislead anyone to think that social is the only channel. I love getting face to face, I love having a conversation on the phone, I don’t really like email, I’d rather do DM on Twitter, or communicate via LinkedIn.

Yes, social selling, but don’t forget the other channels to build the relationship!

Loved the “mindset, skill set, toolset” concept. I remember you shared that on our Interviews w/Inside Sales Gurus episode, and that really stuck with me as the “trio” of sales effectiveness. All three are required.